Numerical prediction of inlet recirculation in pumps

Abstract

The development of heavy-duty process pumps, usually based on various design criteria, depends on the pump’s application. The most important criteria are Q-H, efficiency and NPSH characteristics. Cavitation due to inlet recirculation is not often one of the design criteria, although many problems in pump operation appear because of inlet recirculation, when the operation range is from 0.5-0.8 Qopt. The present paper shows that steady state CFD analysis of inlet recirculation can give quite good results for the design of new hydraulic shapes, which have been developed to expand operating range and to minimize the harmful influence of recirculation at part load. In this paper, the structures of inlet recirculation are presented, as well as detailed shapes of vortices between the blades for various operating regimes, axial velocity distribution at the impeller inlet, the experimental results of NPSH and efficiency characteristics of an existing and newly designed pump.